This section introduces aspects that may be helpful to facilitate a better understanding of the inventions. Accordingly, the statements of this section are to be read in this light and are not to be understood as admissions about what is in the prior art or what is not in the prior art. Any techniques or schemes described herein as existing or possible are presented as background for the present invention, but no admission is made thereby that these techniques and schemes were heretofore commercialized, or known to others besides the inventors.
In wireless networks (for example LTE), there are many instances where a particular UE may be out of the coverage area of base station (eNB), may not have the appropriate radio to communicate with the eNB, or may lack sufficient power to establish a direct connection with the eNB, and may thus be considered “remote” to the eNB or the network served by the eNB. In such situations the remote UE may be unable to directly communicate with the eNB. However, there may be another UE in proximity to the remote UE that happens to be within the coverage of the eNB and has appropriate radio resources and power to communicate with the network. Such a scenario may be critical, e.g. for public safety personnel for whom direct wireless coverage may be unavailable in a disaster situation. This scenario may also be encountered for many wireless devices such as “wearables” coming to market, e.g. smart watches and health monitors, which may have limited radio and power resources, but may be able to use another regular UE, such as a smart phone, to establish communication with the network. To provide wireless coverage for such remote UEs which are out of the coverage area, or wearables with limited radio capability, relays are typically used to extend connectivity to these devices.